Research Provides Hope for Those with Chronic Illness

Humans have 20,000 genes in every cell within the body, yet we only express about 6,00 of them. So where are the rest of them? Do you have any control over them? And what does it matter? Dr. Paul Durham, director of the Center for Biomedical and Life Sciences at Jordan Valley Innovation Center and professor of biology at Missouri State University, discusses interesting facts about predisposition for disease and how we can - to some degree - control our long-term health. This is something he's been focusing on in his research of epigenetics.

"For example, in cancer, there's these epigenetic changes that occur, where you actually turn off the good genes - the ones that protect our genes from getting mutated," he explained. "And what can reverse that? Eating a lot of fruits and vegetables."

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